Internet maturity

For the last couple of days I have thought a lot of Internet maturity. It’s something that keeps coming back to me when discussing Internet and its opportunities at work. It doesn’t matter how much I preach people in whole don’t get it. They don’t see that we need to think in totally new ways and treat the Internet as any other sales and marketing channel.

By the end of 2008 more than half our revenues should come from the Internet. A rather aggressive goal and in my opinion quite impossible to reach when Internet always comes last on the agenda. We need to turn the equation up side down. If the Internet part is going to be the breadwinner in the company we need to treat it like a breadwinner as well. Just the other day I had a person telling me that when she works she doesn’t think about Internet until she’s done with her tasks. Then she just does something very quick and easy without any thoughts and regards on where it’s going to be used. And the worse part is that she just does it because she has to. She doesn’t’ understand why. Thinking about Internet in all new project and ongoing tasks should be something that comes natural.

It seems like the people who gets it gets it very well, and the people who don’t get it are very far from getting it. The gap is enormous and I guess that’s where Internet maturity comes in. It doesn’t matter if the top management gets it and hires people like me to strive towards the goal when the rest of the employees don’t get it. As everyday producers and doers they are the core of the company. And the core group needs to understand before we will see any changes. Sad, but true.

I really don’t know what I will do besides continuing with being passionate about the Internet and its opportunities. One department has actually asked me to come and talk about the use of Internet and why we as a company should make a shift. The funny thing is that this department has been involved with Internet issues since the company started with online booking about 10 years ago. So I’m a bit surprised that they haven’t gotten it by now. But then on the other side they are interested and that is a very good thing. I guess Rome wasn’t built in a day...